


Find a Better Story

by rei_c



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Don't Examine This Too Closely, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Literary References & Allusions, Mythology References, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 04:42:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13756551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rei_c/pseuds/rei_c
Summary: There's this story, right.





	Find a Better Story

**Author's Note:**

> I...don't know. I have no excuse.

There's this story, right, about this guy who goes into hell to get the love of his life back but he doesn't have the coins for the ferryman -- the river Styx, the Charon, one of those. So the ferryman says, "Take over my job for a day, ferry all the souls who come here -- with the correct change," he can't resist adding, "and I'll let you go through without paying the toll. I'll even give you directions." "What's to stop me from saying yes, then just taking the boat to the other side myself?" the guy asks. The ferryman gives him this, like, super serious look. "Hell's a pretty big place, my man," he says. "You really wanna go wandering around in it for the rest of your eternity?"

The guy thinks about that, says, "Are we talking like an earth day or a hell day, here, because I heard the times don't exactly match up," and the ferryman pulls out a -- what do you call it, an hourglass, one of those things. Guy asks, "You just happened to have that in your pocket?" The ferryman says, "Hey, you think you're the first schmuck who ever came here thinking I'd take a fake credit card?"

So the ferryman and the guy trade coats, ferryman hands over his boat pole because apparently the river's not deep or whatever, and the guy takes it, uses it to help balance as he gets inside the boat, ferryman -- the once-ferryman, turns over the hourglass, says "One day," and wanders off with his hands in his pockets humming Alanis Morissette or some shit like that, whatever .

Expert that's not really how it went, right? Could've been something more Jocasta, all incest and guilt enough to make a man tear out his own eyes and fates that like to fuck with people -- fates or gods, they both love a good plot twist -- could've been Narcissus and Echo, because let me tell you, that guy was hot and he damn well knew it, probably could've spent his whole life looking in a mirror if he wasn't raised the way he was -- though Echo maybe fits a little better but like, not perfect, y'know? Longing from a distance, check, thinking he ain't never seen or heard, check, heart ripped away while the rest of him fades out, check check check, but all these old stories end bad, right, and I like to think this one didn't.

The problem with these stories, okay, and just go with me here, is trying to figure out who's who. I mean, sure, Persephone, the forbidden fruit, but if that's blood or a kiss, who knows, it doesn't quite fit. None of it quite fits. So this is all bullshit to begin with.

Oh, the guy and the ferryman? Well, dude couldn't take it, could he. So he never got past the river. But it's like, things just have a way of working out, sometimes, right, and we never really know which one's Orpheus and which one's Eurydice, but sometimes things are off just enough that it doesn't really matter anyway and you should find yourself a better story.

Or a better storyteller.


End file.
